We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

“Not my church!” Okay, babes. Let’s talk about your church. This week, we’re looking at the seemingly respectable theology of male leadership and female submission—and what happens when someone follows that hierarchy all the way to its ugliest conclusions. We’re talking control, abuse, “biblical manhood,” good Christian men™, and the very convenient definition of equality where one person somehow gets all the authority. Not every church takes these beliefs to the extreme. But maybe the better question is: why are we comfortable with the beliefs that make the extreme possible?

They taught us Jesus is love, people will know us by our fruit, and we should hide God’s word in our hearts. So we did. And now apparently we’re being difficult because we keep noticing when the fruit is rotten. This week, we’re talking VeggieTales, Awana jewels, performative prayer, deconstruction, and all the childhood faith lessons that held up suspiciously well once we started asking questions. You can’t be mad at us—we learned it from a flannelgraph.

The synapses are synapping, the theology is theologizing, and somehow Jesus has ended up at a sloppy disco with 180 gallons of wine. In part two of our discussion of Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dale’s God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, we’re talking Jubilee, joy, breastfeeding the body of Christ, and why apparently you’re allowed to kick God in the shins. We also ask what happens when you stop treating the Bible like an instruction manual and start actually trying to know the character of God. There is chaos. There is wine. There is an alarming amount of Leviticus. Somehow, we swear, it all connects.

Apparently, God doesn’t hate you. Wild, we know. This week we’re talking about God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, why Joseph may have been a fabulous little turd, and whether God can take a joke. We also have some questions about why Christians got so comfortable making everyone feel terrible about themselves. Spoiler: we don’t think that was the point. Unclench, you little cuss.

She had big hair, bigger boobs, and absolutely no intention of making herself smaller for anybody.Dolly Parton spent a lifetime being underestimated — and used it to build an empire, give away millions of books, create jobs, fund education, love people the church sometimes forgot to love, and leave the world considerably better than she found it.This week, we’re talking about the woman, the rhinestones, the audacity, and the kind of faith that doesn’t ask whether someone deserves kindness before offering it.